Football Manager 2009

What works

• Installation via Steam
  
• Activation using official work arounds
• Starting a new game
• Running a game
• Saving the game
• Running a match
• 3D Match Display

Basically, the game works :)

What does not

• Installation via DVD installer (problems with Java)
• Activation using vanilla out-of-the-box activation program 

Workarounds

What was not tested

• Network Play

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

Installation:
Use Steam (see instructions for installing Steam on wine) - you can insert your CD key from retail versions to download and install via Steam.

You must have directx9, dotnet20 and msxml3 installed to run FM2009, these can all be installed with winetricks.

Activation:
Download the fixed activator (http://www.footballmanager.com/fixv2.zip), run the program to extract activator.exe over the one at (default) ~/.wine/drive_c/"Program Files"/Steam/steamapps/common/"football manager 2009"/activator.exe.

Run the new activator from the command line as follows:
wine ~/.wine/drive_c/"Program Files"/Steam/steamapps/common/"football manager 2009"/activator.exe -activate ufhw8eff89ff0nwf08ww

Where ufhw8eff89ff0nwf08ww is the key printed on your manual (if you bought the game through Steam, right click it in My Games and click 'Show CD key' - do NOT paste directly from here, it will not work in uppercase)

Make sure your CD key is all lowercase, and watch out for 1's that look like l's, or o's that look like 0's (use http://keycheck.fm2009.softanchorinsight.com/ to check your key).

You should now be able to launch the game via Steam. I'll be testing Network mode later and will report back with my findings.

If for some reason it doesn't work, please check ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/profiles/"All Users"/"Application Data"/"Sports Interactive"/"Football Manager 2009 Certificate"/HttpCheck.log and make sure that the end reads something like:

SI Activator: Activation succeeded
Activation reads success.

kEvalTestNumComponents: 1
kEvalTestMatches: 1
kEvalTestTier1Matches: 1
kEvalTestMismatches: 1
kEvalTestInvalidItems: 1
kEvalTestNonces: 1
kEvalTestTier2Matches: 1
kEvalTestNonceDiffs: 1
License reads success.
License key: YOUR_CD_KEY

VIRTUAL CRACK IS BACK!